This new institute, a multi-disciplinary effort focused on artificial intelligence and advanced computing, will initially accept proposals related to the abatement of COVID-19, and mitigating risks from future pandemics using AI.

"NCSA has a long history of applying computing and data to transform society, starting with its founding as one of the first academic supercomputing centers," said NCSA Director William "Bill" Gropp. "We are excited to support the C3.ai DTI with our expertise in building multidisciplinary partnerships and applying the power of supercomputing to solve the challenges facing society today."

"This new institute will greatly expand the use of computing and data to improve the world, starting with bringing together a consortium of leading institutions to address the COVID-19 crisis," continued Gropp.

The first call for proposals for the C3.ai DTI is open now, with a deadline of May 1, 2020, and is the first of a series of bi-annual calls.

C3.ai, Microsoft Corporation, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), the University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at UIUC announced two major initiatives:

C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute (C3.ai DTI), a research consortium dedicated to accelerating the application of artificial intelligence to speed the pace of digital transformation in business, government, and society. Jointly managed by UC Berkeley and UIUC, C3.ai DTI will sponsor and fund world-leading scientists in a coordinated effort to advance the digital transformation of business, government, and society.

C3.ai DTI First Call for Research Proposals: C3.ai DTI invites scholars, developers, and researchers, to embrace the challenge of abating COVID-19 and advance the knowledge, science, and technologies for mitigating future pandemics using AI. This is the first in what will be a series of bi-annual calls for Digital Transformation research proposals.

"The C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute is a consortium of leading scientists, researchers, innovators, and executives from academia and industry, joining forces to accelerate the social and economic benefits of digital transformation," said Thomas M. Siebel, CEO of C3.ai. "We have the opportunity through public-private partnership to change the course of a global pandemic," Siebel continued. "I cannot imagine a more important use of AI."

Immediate Call for Proposals: AI Techniques to Mitigate Pandemic

Topics for Research Awards may include but are not limited to the following:

Applying machine learning and other AI methods to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic

Design and sharing of clinical trials for collecting data on medications, therapies, and interventions

Modeling, simulation, and prediction for understanding COVID-19 propagation and efficacy of interventions

Logistics and optimization analysis for design of public health strategies and interventions

Rigorous approaches to designing sampling and testing strategies

Data analytics for COVID-19 research harnessing private and sensitive data

Improving societal resilience in response to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic

Broader efforts in biomedicine, infectious disease modeling, response logistics and optimization, public health efforts, tools, and methodologies around the containment of rising infectious diseases and response to pandemics, so as to be better prepared for future infectious diseases

The first call for proposals is open now, with a deadline of May 1, 2020. Researchers are invited to learn more about C3.ai DTI and how to submit their proposals for consideration at C3DTI.ai. Selected proposals will be announced by June 1, 2020.